Specific Aim 1. To develop fast, reliable and practical synthetic methods to efficiently synthesize chemically defined PIM2, PIM4, and PIM6 (Figure 2) similar to the natural antigens found in M. tuberculosis.
Specific Aim 2. To evaluate the synthetic PIM2, PIM4, and PIM6 (Figure 2) for their immunological properties in order to identify the optimum number of mannoside units (R, Figure 1) on the PIM structures for a TB vaccine candidate.
Specific Aim 3. Relying on the results from specific aim 1 and 2, an optimal synthetic carbohydrate antigen for a TB vaccine candidate will be designed based on both aspects of the magnitude in immune response and synthesis difficulties.
Specific Aim 4. To synthesize the most favor TB vaccine antigen candidate derived from specific aim 3 in a large scale for future in vivo evaluation.
